The Causes of Self Hatred and How to Combat It

The Causes of Self Hatred and How to Combat It

Every other ethnic background seems to stand up for itself and demand respect when it is being discriminated against. If we look back over the history of this country we will find group after group that defend their rights. Groups that do not want to be portrayed in a negative light within the culture and groups that insist upon compensation for what Americans and the American society has done to them. Why, then, when we look at Italian Americans, do we tend to see a group of people who in effect renounce who they are and do not embrace their heritage?

There are many reasons for this quite common denouncement. The first is an attempt to assimilate. “By 1930, more than 4.5 million Italians had entered the United States,”; that is, a third of the population left Italy within the fifty years leading up to 1930 (Mangione 33). These Italians immigrated to this country with the hope that they would find food, jobs and financial security. Instead, they found, often times, worse conditions than they had left behind in Italy. This humungous population was the largest immigration from any one country to ever enter the United States. These people were in need and when they arrived they were ready to work and to earn their wages, which could lead to comfort and happiness. They came in hopes of finding “the American dream.” As a whole, this group was not looking for handouts, but merely for opportunities. Unfortunately, they were met with opposition.

As the History Channel’s documentary on Italian Americans states, Italians were told that in America they would find “streets paved with gold, only to arrive and realize they had to dig the streets.” So, these immigrants picked up shovels and went to work. But they quickly found opposition to their efforts. The Irish, who had come a few years prior to the Italians, did not appreciate the Italians’ willingness to perform hard labor jobs for small wages. The Irish began to feel threatened and soon a rivalry rose between the two groups. This was unfortunate, for both groups, because they were both primarily Catholic. But, this common ground became a divider and not a connector between the two groups.